ng dragged toward the door of the cottage
through which the other two Indians had disappeared. She was jerked
roughly across the threshold, and lay huddled up on the floor. The
Indian released his hold on her arm and, stepping across her body,
reached for the door.

Outside, the roar of the guns was incessant. Suddenly, close at hand,
Chloe heard a quick, wicked spat, and the Indian reeled from the
doorway, whirled as on a pivot, and crashed, face downward, across the
table. There was a loud rattle of porcelain dishes, a rifle rang
sharply upon the floor boards, and Chloe gazed in horrid fascination as
the limp form of the Indian slipped slowly from the table. Its
momentum increased, and the back of the man's head struck the floor
with a sickening thump. The face turned toward her--a face wet and
dripping with the rich red blood that oozed thickly from the irregular
hole in the forehead where the soft, round ball from a smooth bore had
torn into the brain. The wide eyes stared stonily into her own. The
jaws sagged open, and the nearly severed tongue protruded from between
the fang-like yellow teeth.

Someone blew out the lamp. The door slammed shut. Chloe felt strong
hands beneath her shoulders; the voice of Big Lena sounded in her ears,
and she was being guided through the pitch blackness to the door of her
own room. The lamp by the bedside had also been extinguished, and the
girl glanced toward the window, which showed in the feeble starlight a
pattern of jagged panes. One of the Indians who had preceded her into
the cottage thrust the barrel of a rifle through the aperture and fired
rapidly at the flashes of flame in the clearing.

In the other room someone was shrieking, and Chloe recognized the voice
of Harriet Penny. Big Lena left her side, and a moment later the
shrieking ceased, or, rather, quieted to a series of terrified, choking
grunts and muffled cries, as though something soft and thick had been
forcibly applied as a gag. Chloe groped her way blindly toward the
bed, where she had left the wounded man. Her feet stumbled awkwardly
through the confusion of debris that was the wreck of the over-turned
medicine table.

"Are you hurt?" she gasped as she sank trembling upon the edge of the
bed. Close beside her sounded the sharp snap of metal as the Indian
jammed fresh cartridges into his magazine.

"No!" said a voice in her ear. "I'm not hurt. Are you?" Chloe shook
her head, forgetting th